Sunday, June 14, 2015

The LSEA is still a terrible law

For Klinghoffer and his colleagues at the Discovery Institute, the
Louisiana statute is crystal clear — it cannot be used to promote
religion, only to allow public school science teachers the ability to
facilitate an “open and objective discussion of scientific theories
being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of
life, global warming, and human cloning.”

To do so, the law
allows teachers the ability to introduce supplementary materials. That
all may sound perfectly reasonable, until you consider that “the origins
of life” and “human cloning” aren’t scientific theories. This should
probably cause concern: The statute misdefines the very thing it seeks
to regulate. And that’s because this law, the first of its kind passed
in the nation, is not and was never about science education.

It is a law written and promoted by a narrow sect of Christian
conservatives, new earth creationists, folks who believe that the
universe is only 6,000 years old, that Noah saved every species on the
planet by building a floating zoo, and that the apocalypse may occur
within their lifetimes. To be sure, the statute does include a section
recapitulating federal law about prohibiting the promotion of religion,
but despite the Discovery Institute’s best propaganda, that particular
section is meaningless.

In the early 1980s, Louisiana enacted the
Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act, which
required that any public school teaching evolution must also teach
creationism. That law contained the same exact prohibition against
promoting religion. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Edwards v. Aguillard,
saw through the charade and invalidated the law — there’s no such thing
as “creation-science;” it’s just creationism. In fact, in later
opinions, courts have said the same thing about “intelligent design” —
it too is the same thing as creationism.

The legislative session just ended on Thursday and our terrible creationist law survived another year. When he launches his Presidential campaign in ten days, Bobby Jindal is going to talk about how great he has been for education in Louisiana.